So I thought I would give you an update on our unschooling adventure and how that’s going. As you can guess, even our unschooling tends toward the techie.

Uber is busily learning Java and studying artificial intelligence. He’s also considering joining a local group that meets regularly to discuss how Linux can take over the world.

H-T is writing a book. I KNOW!! I WAS SO EXCITED TOO!! Until I realized the book is based on the life of a video game character. But hey, he’s WRITING A BOOK. Beggars will NOT be choosers in this house. And anyway, the book is actually pretty darn good so far. I’m actually invested enough to care about this video game persona!

Other, slightly non-techie pursuits include their music lessons (Uber’s taking piano and H-T’s taking guitar), we’re reading through the Canterbury Tales (thanks to Holly!) and studying a bit of Medieval History, and they are also getting ready to take part in Drama Club, where the spring play happens to be Robin Hood – – how serendipitous! They also are both doing well with their math studies, which Uber takes on YourTeacher.com, and H-T uses Time4Learning.

Overall, this has been an amazingly successful experiment, so far. I don’t think I could have done it when the boys were in their elementary years…but interest-led learning is SO VERY PERFECT for the middle and high school years!!

I’m not sure how your family actively studies vocabulary, but we have our own unique strategy around here: give birth to a geekling.

Our 15-year-old has a new passion, and I can always tell, because a whole new crop of words begin cropping up in his daily conversations. Now I like to think of myself as somewhat of a word nerd, but I quickly realize I am out of my league when the following arcana starts to infiltrate our life:

Ubuntu

Root (and I don’t mean like the plant!)

open-source

Debian

partition

desktop environment

I kind of get the whole “desperate parent” thing Jon Voight has going on. It is not exactly easy to be completely bypassed by the person who was asking you to help them tie their shoes not long ago!

So to stay in step with my son it means I have to embrace the idea of Linux.